Will the Deer Park prairie survive? Since early this month, conservationists have been scrambling to raise $4 million by Aug. 20, lest 50 acres of rare native grassland be turned into a housing development.

We are rooting hard for that prairie.

Harris County has plenty of housing developments. But coastal prairie is one of the world's most endangered ecosystems. Buffalo once roamed roughly 9 million acres of the subtropical tall-grass prairie in Texas and Louisiana, but today less than 1 percent of that prairie is left. And of that 1 percent, not much is what biologists call "high-quality" - chock full of plant and animal species, with its original ever-so-slighty rolling land forms still intact, never plowed.

But the Deer Park prairie is pristine. Though surrounded by strip malls, a cemetery and suburban houses, it's what Jaime Gonzalez, education director for the Katy Prairie Conservancy, calls "the platinum standard of prairies." In the year and a half since conservationists discovered the land, biologists have logged an astounding 300 plant species there. And those plants provide habitat for insects and animals. Dragonflies swoop on the prairie. Meadowlarks sing. Pocket gophers tunnel.

We love the idea that the prairie could be preserved for generations to come. We like the idea of hiking there, watching the spring wildflowers ripple in the wind. We imagine battle re-enactors re-creating the Battle of San Jacinto on the kind of terrain that Sam Houston's soldiers actually saw. And most of all, we want urban schoolkids to visit that prairie, not just to learn biology and history, but also to catch bugs and listen to frogs and simply to know what a wild place is like.

We salute the Bayou Land Conservancy, which is leading the frantic effort to raise money - and which, as we write this, is more than halfway there. We salute Terry Hershey, the longtime eco-activist who pledged $2 million; the Hamman Foundation, which pledged $200,000; and a host of much smaller donors, including the guy who offered his '51 Studebaker to the cause.

But the clock is ticking. At bayoulandconservancy.org, there is literally a clock, an ominous black animation that shows how many days, hours, minutes and seconds remain until the Tuesday deadline.

We don't like to think that time will run out for that prairie. We want it to be there forever. And we hope that Houston comes through.